Twitter lays off entire teams in India, other employees await ‘confirmation’

A New Delhi-based Twitter India employee said her entire team had been fired. She said she still has access to company systems but was
hoping for a confirmation by Friday night or Saturday morning.

“Many from content, partner, curation, communication, sales, and social marketing have been impacted,” she told ET.

She added that people who have been laid off would get an email on their personal email address that they’re no longer employed at Twitter.


Read |
Twitter begins layoffs in India as part of global downsizing

“A lot of people just woke up to revoked access,” she added.

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Another Twitter India employee who worked for the social media company for two years told ET he hadn’t received an email about him being fired but was logged out of all his company systems, emails and Slack.

“This is not the case just with me, but with my entire team and manager,” he said.

He said the employees were warned in a heads-up email early in the morning on Friday that if they are laid off, they will be logged out of their systems first and be informed on their personal email address later.

Reports suggested that Elon Musk, who took over Twitter recently would cut roughly half of the 7,600-strong global workforce to about 3,800 employees. According to the company, the employee badge access to Twitter’s offices has already been shut off “temporarily”.

“To help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data, our offices will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended. If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please return home,” Twitter said in an internal memo.

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Microblogging platform Twitter’s employees have been on-edge ever since Musk took over the company. The company’s India office was no exception.

On Friday, Twitter was flooded with tweeps from around the world gushing about their workplace, some sharing warm photos of camaraderie and workplace friendships while others shared teary messages upon not being able to log into their official accounts. The atmosphere online was a bittersweet one with people sharing how anxious they were feeling to taking comfort in a parent’s words or even expressing their gratitude and thanks to teammates for a memorable ride and a job well done.

“Almost cried when Amma said, ‘I know you far too well. Nothing can beat you down and Pappa is with god protecting you no matter what,” one employee tweeted.

Another ex-employee tweeted that she was ‘gutted’ to see a company with such a strong and positive work culture trending because it’s the end of an era.

“Many bright tweeps will be looking for jobs- snap them up asap if you are half smart!” She said.

A number of others took a jibe at the Tesla CEO who called himself the Chief Twit and used the hashtag #AlwaysATweepNeverATwit in their tweets. Other commonly used hashtags were #LoveWhereYouWorked and #LoveTwitter.

“Just got laid off,” another person said. “Bird App, it was an absolute honour, the greatest privilege ever to be a part of this team, this culture ”

Most took to the platform to shower their colleagues with praises and gratitude.

“Never thought I’d get to work @twitter in the first place. What a great ride. Thanks to some of the best people and partners for making this an experience of a life time, ” one person said.

Another tweeted to their ‘tweep family.’ “Be insanely proud of what you have built, scaled and cherished all these years. It’s because of the tweeps who persisted and overcame all odds, that this incredible platform for the world exists and is thriving. please reach out ,” the tweet read.